


"Steel in its Cauldron, Ready to Pour Forth, White Hot"

by farad



Series: Epistles [6]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 06:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set well after "Inmate 78", yet before "Obsession"; for the Daybook prompt "Any, any, "I was saving this bottle for a special occasion.""</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Steel in its Cauldron, Ready to Pour Forth, White Hot"

**Author's Note:**

> Once more, unbeta-ed, all mistakes my own.

 

_"Injustice boils in men's hearts as does steel in its cauldron, ready to pour forth, white hot, in the fullness of time."_

\- Mother Jones

 

_Dear Mr. Larabee,_

 

_You don't know me – well, I reckon you do, since you're the man I hear who saved my life. But we never had a formal introduction or nothing. I was pretty much out of my head when you saw me, and I've been told over the past months that it was you who stood up for me when the Warden at that damned false prison tried to work me to death._

 

_When we were freed from the prison, Doc Simmons took me out of there, and since he didn't know who I was – hell, I didn't really know who I was, we went back to Kansas, place called Witchita where the Doc knew some people. We been here since, though I am getting stronger now, and my head's beginning to clear up. The Doc's been tending me real good, but then you know how he is. Well, you knew how he was back there. He's different now, though, just like I am. He still drinks, but it ain't from morning til night like it was in the prison. Now, he only drinks a little in the evenings, when we're sitting on the porch, talking 'bout things._

 

_He says you might not believe that, but I can swear to it being true. He's a good man, the Doc, and he's cleaned up real nice too. Here in Witchita, he's working again, seeing patients as he can. He'll tell you that he won't see no one who can't pay, but I know that ain't true 'cause I've heard him tell folks that they can work something out. He's taken food and drink and even firewood and horse feed, and though he says he won't go out of his way to see a patient, while I'm writing this, he's off tending to an old man who can't get down here to see him – and old man who might pay him in liquor, as it's the town's biggest saloon owner._

 

_The Doc is the one whose told me 'bout what you did for me, 'bout how you stood up to that bastard of a warden. Doc also tells me that you reminded him of me, though the way he tells it don't sound like me at all. He tends to go on about stubborn cusses too high-minded and righteous to see sense. But he don't say it with the anger he did back in the camp, and sometimes now I think he finds it funny._

 

_Guess I should start by telling you my name: it's Ardel, Ardel Barton Hammond. I'm from Texas, little place called Adobe Walls that's most famous for them battles with the Indians. I was away fighting in the war at the first battle, though, in 1864, but my daddy almost died in it. My ma was already dead – she died when I was 'bout three years old so I never knew her. Anyway, I wasn't there for either of the battles with the Indians, the first one or the second one; I was in the prison there when the second one happened, and I'm only learning 'bout it now. Might be part of why I'm not in a hurry to get back to Texas._

 

_My pa owns a big spread there, one that I stand to inherit, I reckon, if I decide I want it. If I decide I want to go back. I'm thinking on that a lot right now, and the Doc's giving me the time to do it. I keep waiting for him to tell me to get on out of his house and all, but so far, he says I'm a help to him, taking care of the place, getting things in order and the like. It's an old place, needs a lot of work – I think I repatched the entire roof over the last few months._

 

_What I'm thinking 'bout, though, is why I don't want to go back. And why I didn't want to ask for the bail money from my pa when that damned Sheriff tried to get it out of me. My pa would have paid it, I got no doubt about that. But he didn't know where I was and there was a reason for that. I was off looking for my brother, who my pa don't get on with. And I didn't want to owe my pa nothing for getting me out of that. I'm a man now, and what that Warden and the Sheriff was doing was wrong, damned wrong, and I'd be damned if I'd let them do it on the backs of me and my family._

 

_I still feel that way. But something happened to me, somewhere along the way. The Doc says that I wore myself out, fighting everything. He talks a lot 'bout how I have to pick my battles, not rush into everyone that steps in front of me. And these days, I think he's right. I still ain't got my strength back, not the way it used to be. And I still have spells, as he calls them, mostly when I've been working hard. I can't rightly say what they are, it's just that I lose time. One minute I'll be sitting on the porch, drinking a tin of water and the next, it's full dark and I'm still sitting there, still holding the tin of water._

 

_The Doc thinks that that was a lot of what happened to me in the prison camp, that I was trapped in my own head, as he says. It sounds strange to me, but I can't rightly disagree. I don't remember a lot about the prison camp, leastways, not after the first months or so. Seems like I was back fighting the war, looking for my brother and for my friends. If you fought in the war, reckon you know what I mean. If you didn't, well, talk to someone who was there._

 

_Anyways, the Warden was pretty much out to kill me, or so the Doc tells me, and you came along and saved me. I wish I could remember meeting you, at least having a face to go with the name. Doc says that one of your friends mentioned that this is where you live, which is the only way I even know that much. I'd like to shake your hand, to thank you in person. It seems only fair since you did what you did for me, up to the point of getting yourself hurt. Ain't had many people ever do that for me, only one that I clearly remember that he's the one I'm looking for. So I reckon I'll end up keeping on with the search, once I get back on my feet enough to be on my own. Sounds like the town you're in, there in New Mexico Territory, ain't too far from where I need to be looking for my kin, so I hope you won't mind if I show up there one day. As I said, I'd like to have a face to go with the name, and I'd like to shake your hand, maybe share some whiskey with you. I've got a special bottle that the Doc give me, waiting just for that meeting. Seems to the least I can do, and the Doc says it's the least he can do, too._

 

_Del Hammond_

_Inmate 46_

 


End file.
